Queen of Battle

[Page Stephens]

Jim brings up an interesting problem.

There are tunes like The British Grenadier which are so popular that they
lend themselves to parody and/or new words.

The tune to "The Son of a Gambolier" for example is best today known as "I'm
a rambling wreck from Georgia Tech".

Somewhere around the house I have a parody of The British Grenadier which is
entitled The British Gonorrhea.

Then you have tunes like Lili Marlene which was used by members of the
British army for their song, "We're the D-Day Dodgers" an attack on Lady
Astor who supposedly accused them of avoiding D-Day when they were busy
fighting in Italy.

I am currently involved in recording some poems written by a friend of mine
which he has said in his book: "to be sung to the tune of ..."

In other words he had the tune in mind before he began writing the poem.

This causes some problems with words and scan which have forced him to use
occasionally infelicitous words.

On the other hand song parodies quite often preserve contempory words and
usages which otherwise might have died out.

The classic old British army song, "Fuck 'em all, Bless 'em all or Sod 'em
all" take your choice is an example.

I can give you a hundred or more verses to this tune which involve the
particular wars in which different soldiers took part.

To give you only one there is:

"They sent for the navy to come to Tulagi,
And the dear little navy agreed
In seventeen sections from seven directions
My god what a fucked up stampede."

I would argue that on some level you have to understand the tune to which
poetry/doggerel is set to in order understand the words which the poet uses.

There is also a feedback mechanism on this level because if you take a song
like "The Unfortunate Rake" series which leads to such songs as "The
Cowboy's Lament", etc. the words often overcome the tune and as a result the
tune is changed to accommodate the new words which are based on the same
theme.

In either case the words are preserved in amber at the time the first
folklorist/anthropologist recorded them and thus they are a record not of
current usage but of historical usage.

This brings up another problem.

How many of you have ever heard Mike Seeger recreate songs exactly as they
were sung in the 1920s or '30s?

If you have heard Mike sing them how many of you know what the words he
sings mean?

Here is an example:

WEAVE ROOM BLUES
(DORSEY DIXON)

  Working in a weave-room, fighting for my life
  Trying to make a living for my kiddies and my wife;
  Some are needing clothing, some are needing shoes,
  But I'm getting nothing but the weave-room blues.

    I've got the blues, I've got the blues,
    I've got them awful weave-room blues;
    I got the blues, the weave-room blues.

  With your looms a-slamming, shuttles bouncing in the floor,
  When you flag your fixer, you can see that he is sore;
  Trying to make a living, but I'm thinking I will lose,
  For I'm sent a-dying with them weave-room blues.

    I've got the blues, I've got the blues,
    I've got them awful weave-room blues;
    I got the blues, the weave-room blues.

 Harness eyes are breaking with the doubles coming through,
  Devil's in your alley and he's coming after you,
  Our hearts are aching, well, let's take a little booze;
  For we're simply dying with them weave-room blues.

    I've got the blues, got the blues,
    I've got them awful weave-room blues;
    I got the blues, the weave-room blues.

  Slam-outs, break-outs, knot-ups by the score,
  Cloth all rolled back and piled up in the floor;
  The harness eyes are breaking, strings are hanging to your shoes,
  We're simply dying with them weave-room blues.

    I've got the blues, got the blues,
    I've got them awful weave-room blues;
    I got the blues, the weave-room blues.

Mike, thank heaven, has recorded Dorsey Dixon's song as have any number of
other people but I wonder if any of them knows what the words mean.

It is one thing to recreate a song exactly. It is quite another to know what
the words mean.

I haven't asked Mike about this but I am certain that he knows what they
mean and unfortunately Dorsey is long dead and so I cannot ask him.

I myself have stolen the tune and put new words to it because it is so
beautiful.

This, of course, informs the meter of my poem.

Best,

Page Stephens

----- Original Message -----
From: "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 9:21 AM
Subject: Re: Queen of Battle


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Queen of Battle
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
> I finally found my copy of that song---I had misfiled it under "filk
songs".
> (The noise you hear in the background is Mark Mandel snickering).
>
> It was not sheet music, just three stanzas of the words.  For students of
the
> dreadful, here they are:
>
>       Count off you cannon cockers, you redleg cannoneers
>       We've been the king of battle for the past two hundred years
>       The Grunts and Tankers need us to open up the way
>       So fire your guns 'til the battle's won, with the Field Artillery
>       So fire your guns 'til the battle's won, with the Field Artillery
>
>       With rocket, gun and missle, we redlegs meet the foe
>       Our fires are always deadly and we keep him on the go
>       Whenever something's doing, they always send for me
>       So fire your guns 'til the battle's won, with the Field Artillery
>       So fire your guns 'til the battle's won, with the Field Artillery
>
>       Our past is rich in coruage, in spirit, nerve and pride
>       And when we're called to battle we take it in our stride
>       So lift your glasses, gunners, and drink a toast with me
>       As Redlegs all, we'll stand and fall with the Field Artillery
>       As Redlegs all, we'll stand and fall with the Field Artillery
>
> Well, maybe Fred Shapiro can add this to his quotation corpus as an
> illustrative example of Sturgeon's Law "Ninety percent of everything is
crud."
>
> No idea of the tune.  It can be sung to "British Grenadiers" but even that
> won't improve its literary quality.
>
> The reference to "tankers" dates this song as World War I at the earliest
and
> more likely World War II or later.  "Grunts" meaning "infantry" is in the
OED
> with a first citation of 1969.
>
> In the same misfile I found the sheet music to a song entitled "The
Mountain
> Battery":
>
>      Stand up!  Stand up!  Attention!
>      You redleg mountaineers.
>      With your gun and your pack
>      And your box of tack
>      Noncoms and cannoneers.
>      Baptized in Mindanao
>      Beside the Sulu Sea
>      With a tow and a tow
>      And a tow row row
>      From the mountain battery.
>      With a tow and a tow
>      And a tow row row
>      From the mountain battery.
>
>      For when we are commanded
>      To open u the ball
>      We slap our guns together
>      And beside them stand or fall
>      To right and left before u
>      Our shrapnel bursts we see
>      With a tow and a tow
>      And a tow row row
>      From the mountain battery.
>      With a tow and a tow
>      And a tow row row
>      From the mountain battery.
>
> This was written by Colonel Gerald E. Griffin while stationed in Cuba in
> 1906-1909.  The words and music are both derivative from "British
Grenadiers" and
> since the text accompanying the sheet music (which is photocopied from pp
> 49-50 of an unknown book) says Griffin wrote "songs and parodies", this
song may
> indeed have been deliverately written as a parody of "British Grenadiers".
>
>            - Jim Landau